Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art, and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little rework. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, mini-workshops, and behind-the-scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She’ll challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love, through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the rework.
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi, friends, and welcome back to The ReWork. Today’s episode is the first in a series about what I’m finding is a common mistake for many of us, overwhelming or exhausting our clients. Our motivations are good, but they may not be creating the results that we are looking for, either for ourselves or for our clients. And I find that this overwhelm falls into three main categories. We’re using too many words, we’re creating way too much experience, and we’re overwhelming our clients with way too many choices. So let’s dig in.
Allison Tyler Jones: I believe that there are two main causes to all of this overwhelm. One is our glorious, amazing, creative, ADD brains, and two is our fears and insecurities about our abilities. As creatives, and I think almost all of us are undiagnosed ADD, we’re easily bored. We’re always thinking of new ideas, always wanting to change things up every year, and wanting to add more and more, more words, more experience, more choices. We’re always chasing the newest, the latest in gear, shooting styles, branding, we’re optimizers, we want to make things better and better every year. That’s our genius, that’s what makes us great.
Allison Tyler Jones: We’re trying to create a high-end luxury experience for our clients. Besides, it’s fun to do new things. 40 over 40? Yes. Mini-sessions? Let’s go. Artist projects? Sign me up. New logo, new packaging? Yes, please. And before you know it, we have a brand that’s confusing, a website or an Instagram feed that says, “We want to be all things to all people,” and there’s no clear way for clients to understand what we are about, or when they come into contact with us, they are overloaded with so many words, so much experience, or so many choices, that it just feels like too much.
Allison Tyler Jones: The second one with the fear is we are insecure about our abilities, so we fall into a more-equals-more type mindset, add in more makeup, hair, more shooting, more experience, more words and process, just more. We keep adding instead of carefully curating each and every part of our client experience. If we just give the clients more, they’re going to like us more and spend more, right? If we say more, do more, show more, it’ll be worth more, right? Not necessarily. As Donald Miller, the author of StoryBrand, says, “If you confuse, you lose,” and that is never more true than in the business of portraiture.
Allison Tyler Jones: In our business, there are so many moving parts to what we do, so many different steps along the way. We’re part retail, we’re part service, we’re part manufacturing. We have so many parts to our business and so many parts to our process that it’s overwhelming and confusing to us when we’re first learning it. But once we know it, we think, oh, well, this is easy. But it can be very confusing and overwhelming to our clients as well. If we want to build a profitable, sustainable portrait studio, and I know, if you’re listening to this, that you do, you must be an expert for your clients and guide them through your process, while not overwhelming them with too much of everything.
Allison Tyler Jones: So in this episode, I want to talk specifically about overwhelming our clients with too many words. As we have experiences with our clients, especially negative experiences, we tend to add words to our repertoire because we don’t ever want to go through that again. Adds another paragraph to an already pages-long contract. We might take a course or read a sales book and learn new ways of speaking to clients, so we add that in. Before you know it, we have so many words coming out of our mouths or our texts and emails to clients. Adds more words to an already lengthy explanation of how it works.
Allison Tyler Jones: So how do too many words manifest themselves? Well, one is by over-explaining our process. Two, talking too much about ourselves, not listening enough to the client, or asking the right questions. Or maybe you’re not talking at all, and instead you’re sending the client a bunch of words that they have no context to make sense of. Here’s my price list, here’s my contract, click here, sign here. I could make the case that a bigger mistake is under-explaining and then your client is blindsided later. But when we first start to, quote, unquote, “educate” our clients, I’m using air quotes here but you can’t see any, it really is so easy to overwhelm.
Allison Tyler Jones: TMI, or too much information, is actually a barrier to entry. You may have heard that having your session fee be too high is a barrier to entry, but another barrier to entry is too much information. It happens when you’re new and nervous. So maybe if you’re first trying in-person sales and you’re just dipping your toe in the water, and you feel like, oh, I have to say every single thing in this very first moment that I’m meeting with this client, and then it’s just the verbal vomit, where you’re like, blah, just telling them way too many things, and it’s like, wow, that was a lot of words. You’re not really listening to them or letting a natural conversation take place. That’s a common place that we overdo it.
Allison Tyler Jones: When you’ve made changes, so maybe you’ve been selling in-person for a long time, but you took a new course, or you’re changing the way that you want to work, maybe you’ve changed some of your rules, you’ve changed some of your policies or maybe your pricing, whatever, you’ve made some changes, and you want to educate your client about those changes. I’ve noticed with the students in our programs that they’re eager to rework their business and educate their clients on a new process, and that is a really common time when they over-explain and have just way too many words coming at a client.
Allison Tyler Jones: Another time that we use way too many words, I am so guilty of this, is when it’s been slow. It’s been dead in the summer here in Arizona, it’s dead, in July, it’s super slow. So when it comes into August and September and the phone starts to ring, you feel like, oh my gosh, yay, it’s like water in the desert, they’re coming back. And so, you feel so grateful that your clients are actually calling you, that you talk too quickly, you talk too much, you’re out of practice. I find that I’m feeling rusty and I might over-explain, use too many words, and overwhelm my clients. Using too many words and over-talking to a client reads as… It can read as desperate and clingy, or it can also read as defensive. But either way, it feels weird to a client and it feels like a lot.
Allison Tyler Jones: So some of the common mistakes that I see with too many words are not getting on the phone with a client, just emailing them a contract and a price list. And I will tell you, they don’t read it. If they do, they don’t understand it, so they stop reading it. They might click on all of the things, maybe you’re sending them a contract through your CRM software and they’ve clicked all of those areas, one in 10, I would say, actually, is reading all of that information. Most of us just click on it to get through it and pay the session fee or whatever it is that we need to do, because we’re busy, or they’re on their phone and they’re not reading it. Another common mistake is over-explaining your process. They’re tuning out, they feel like it’s going to be hard and require a lot of them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Either way, if you confuse or overwhelm, you are going to lose the client. And so, what will happen is either you won’t convert in the first place, they will feel like, wow, I just wanted pictures, holy cow, this is a whole thing, I didn’t realize it was going to be such a big deal, maybe we don’t want to do this right now. So they feel like they aren’t up to it, they feel like it’s going to be hard, so they don’t convert into an actual session. If you get them into an actual session, then sometimes you’re just kicking the can down the road and the overwhelm is going to happen later, which we’re going to talk in subsequent episodes. So the result is that the client feels like it’s a lot, it seems like a lot of hoops for them to jump through, and they just need some pictures, yeesh. It can confuse your clients, because they’re only half listening anyway.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then, some of these concepts and our process require multiple explanations and saying the same things in different ways so that clients are actually hearing and understanding what it is that you’re saying. I’ve had so many students say to me, “Why do they have amnesia?” I sent them the information in the email, or I texted it to them, or we talked about it in the first phone call, and then when it came time for the sales appointment, they had complete amnesia, they didn’t remember any of it. It’s because maybe you were talking too much, using too many words, when we should be using less words, simpler words, said more often.
Allison Tyler Jones: How can you tell if a client is being overwhelmed? Well, it sounds like, “Wow, that’s a lot, wow.” Wow is, you would think, oh, that’s a good term, I love wow. Wow, they think my work’s amazing, they think I’m great. But it can also mean, wow, I had no idea that it was going to be this hard. So just listen for the wow, and so when they say that, yeah, it is, it’s awesome, what do you think? Give it time for everything to land, and then check in with them, how does that sound? What are you thinking? And get some feedback on what it is that they’re hearing.
Allison Tyler Jones: And it might also sound like, “Let me talk to my husband and I’ll get back to you.” Now, that can happen whether they’re overwhelmed or not. They might just not want to do business the way that you’re doing business, they might just… For me, I might have somebody say, “Well, let me talk to my husband, I’ll get back to you,” because they wanted me to go out into the desert and shoot their family, and we primarily shoot in studio. So there’s a lot of different reasons why they might say, “Let me talk to my husband and I’ll get back to you,” but that’s usually the kiss of death. We know that they’re not going to talk to their husband and they’re not going to get back to us, they’re just trying to be nice and let us off easy.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what are the solutions to using too many words? Well, I saw a post on Greg McKeown’s Instagram feed this morning… He’s the author of the book Essentialism, one of my core business book reads, in my top three, and I try to reread it at least once a year, if not every six months. So Essentialism, if you haven’t read it, you need that book. But he said on his Instagram feed this morning, “It’s important to simplify before you systematize.” Because you don’t want to have bad things in your system, you don’t want to have bad practices in your system, you don’t want to make a system of faulty processes. So we need to simplify what it is that we’re putting into the system, and we need to simplify our process and our wording and our message.
Allison Tyler Jones: So ask yourself, at each interaction that you are having with your client, what is the bare minimum of information I need to get them to the next step? What is essential that they know at this point? And that you’re reducing your information that you’re giving to your client into bite-sized chunks that is just enough information to get them to the next step. So first phone call, you’re getting them just enough information to get them to the consultation. Consultation, you’re getting them just enough information to where they know what it is that you’re shooting for, so that we can have a targeted conceptualized session, and then get them to the view and order appointment, the sales appointment, so that we know what it is we’re populating for.
Allison Tyler Jones: You want to simplify your mantra, if you will, of what it is that you do, what it is that you’re selling, what it is that you’re about, and have that sentence. And it’s not an elevator pitch, it’s literally one sentence that you can repeat again and again and again until you’re bored to death of it. As the creative, you’re going to be looking and wishing that you had different ways to talk about it. But you actually don’t need different ways to talk about it, you just need THE way, simplified, and talk about it again and again and again. This is how we work, step one, step two.
Allison Tyler Jones: My mantra is, “We specialize in wall art for your home and custom designed albums.” I’m going to be saying that until I’m dead. “We specialize in wall art for your home and custom designed albums,” because that’s what we do, period, end of story. I’m not selling printable digital files, of course we do holiday cards, of course we do gifts, acrylics and eight-by-tens, there’s different ways that we frame that wall art. But basically, what I need my clients to know is that if you don’t want wall art for your home, or a custom designed album, you don’t really want me, because that’s the product that I’m selling, that’s what we’re shooting for, bottom line, that’s it is.
Allison Tyler Jones: Another way to simplify before we systematize is to remember it’s not about us. We’re talking about how what we do benefits our client, and along the way, we’re listening for clues about what they need. So you notice when I say, “We specialize in wall for your home,” so that’s wall art for the client’s home, that’s how it benefits them, and custom designed albums for them. So we’re listening along the way for clues to what they need.
Allison Tyler Jones: So how do we do that? Well, first of all, we’re going to tighten up our first phone call and then get them to the consultation. So that might sound something like, “Tell me about your family, tell me about the project that you’re working on.” There’s a fine line between forming a connection but not overwhelming them. Pay attention to where they are when you’re talking to them. Are they driving? Have you checked to see if this is a good time? Are you getting the sense that they’re hurrying you along? You’re starting to tell them, “Oh, tell me about your kids,” and, “Oh, they’re in soccer.”
Allison Tyler Jones: “Yeah, my kids are in soccer too.” And you can hear them like, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, okay, great, okay.” That’s a bottom line person. Either they’re a bottom line person, or this is not a good time for them to talk. So you can schedule a time for a longer, more relaxed version of this conversation, but it’s very important that you have a super tight, just the facts version of this first phone call, that you can roll forward with quickly, give them the information that they need, and then be willing to spin it out into a more social type conversation, getting information about their family, if it warrants.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m finding more and more that people just don’t have the time and they don’t want to spend the time, and so they seem to be a little bit more short. So I always ask at the beginning of the conversation, even if they’ve called me, because you assume, if they called you, they have time to talk, but that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes they’re waiting in the carpool lane for their kids and they just thought about it and they called you and it’s not a good time. So read the room, pay attention to those social signals, those auditory signals, how they’re speaking to you.
Allison Tyler Jones: So my super tight version of that first phone call is that we’re not normal, we specialize in a finished product. Our clients love wall art for their homes or custom designed albums, they want to enjoy their family in a tangible way in their home. And how we do that is it’s three appointments. We schedule a consultation, where I’ll talk with you about clothing, how much everything costs, get a game plan together for what it is that we’re shooting for, the session’s going to be fun, enjoyable. And then, our view and order appointment is where you make your selections with the images mocked up on your walls. And then, again, in between this, we might be talking about their kids, and what their kids are into, what it is that they’re wanting to shoot for.
Allison Tyler Jones: But I’m letting them know, we’re not normal, here’s how we do it, and then what it costs. Because most of them are saying, “Well, I just need to know how much it’s going to be. How much is this going to cost?” Then I just let them know our range, most of our clients spend north of $5,000. And they might say, “Well, what does that get me?” And so, I have a few sentences that I can tell them what $5,000 would get them. And then, the next step is the consultations are where all your questions are answered, especially your concerns about clothing and how much everything is going to cost.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I feel like, to keep me on task, it’s vital that I have a checklist or a guide to help me through that first phone call and on into the consultation. I’m going to refer you to our website, dotherework.com, where you can download for free, if you don’t already have it, many of you do, but if you don’t, download there for free, our ultimate client consultation form, it’s on the very first page of our website, and that is going to guide you through this entire first phone call and consultation process, and keep all of this information in a single place.
Allison Tyler Jones: I find that having that visual right in front of me, that form, takes me through all of the information that I need to gather from the client, and it also keeps me on task, so that I’m not using too many words, I’m not going rogue, I’m keeping it… We’re still sharing the love, we’re still building a relationship, I still want to know the info about their kids and all of that. But I also want to keep on task, because I want to make their time efficient and I want to make my time efficient, and that’s how we both win.
Allison Tyler Jones: So speaking of consultations… Okay, so again, that first phone call, just enough information to get them to the consultation. Then during the consultation, we’re going to plan the session to shoot for the product. So we want to get a session plan of what we’re shooting for, not an overwhelming brainstorm of creative and clothing and how many outfits and all of that, we want to connect with them, we want to talk to them about their kids and their family, this is assuming that it’s a family portrait. If it’s a high school senior, we want to know about the senior, and what they’re into, what sports they’re into, and everything about their personality. Whatever the subject is that we’re shooting, we want to know more about them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Then I want to paint the vision for that client, and the vision is… They usually don’t come in with a vision, the clients don’t know. So when we are asking them, “What are you thinking? When you think about this image, where’s it going to hang, and then what does it look like?” They have no idea, and that’s our job, our job is to paint that vision. But I ask anyway because I want to see. Sometimes you do have somebody comes in that has a very specific vision, very rarely, maybe six times in my entire career has somebody come in with a specific vision. The rest of the time, they just know they need pictures at this specific time, or they want them, and they don’t know. So I ask them that anyway, because then that lets them see that I do have the vision for them.
Allison Tyler Jones: So we’re going to connect, we’re going to paint the vision, and then I’m going to want them to define the scope of work. What is it that we are shooting for? What do they most want out of this project? Is something that I will ask them, and it forces them to really think about it and narrow it down. When you simplify your message to the very basics of what your client needs to know to progress to the next stage of your process, they feel taken care of, they feel guided, and they feel in good hands.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what I want you to do is I want… I’m going to give you a little assignment. I want you to get a notebook, a piece of paper, and I want you to list every single step of your client onboarding process, or your client journey, whatever you want to call it, and I want you to pinpoint where might you be overwhelming your clients with too many words. They might be spoken words, they might be texted words, they might be emailed words, they might be words in a contract. Where might you be overwhelming your clients? List all the things that you want or need them to know at each stage of that process, and then really look at it and think about when do they really need to know that thing?
Allison Tyler Jones: We don’t need to talk about clothes at the first phone call. We can talk about clothes in the consultation. We don’t need to talk about clothes in the first phone call. So that can be overwhelming, because that’s probably the most overwhelming… For moms that are doing family portraits, that’s definitely the most overwhelming thing is talking about clothes. So letting them know, when they’re spinning about that in that first phone call, “Oh, yeah, we’ll talk about that in the consultation, we’ll get that completely nailed down.” So once you go through, you look at your client onboarding process, what you need them to know at each stage, I want you to either type out into a Google Doc exactly what you’re telling them, word for word if you can, and start stripping it back to the minimum possible number of words and sentences, get it really, really tight.
Allison Tyler Jones: Look at your emails that you’ve sent out. Maybe you have emails that have already been programmed into your CRM software, or maybe signatures in your Outlook or your email program. Maybe you have some automatic emails that you send out when you confirm an appointment or whatever. Are they clear? Is it very, very clear what you’re asking them to do, or what it is that you’re confirming, or is it crystal clear? And are there too many words? Are the words spelled correctly? Very important.
Allison Tyler Jones: So really look at your words, look through your whole process, and try to nail down areas where you just might’ve gotten too bloated in your wording, too much information. How can we cut it back? How can we strip it to the minimum possible number of words and sentences? And so, if we strip it down, that means what’s left has to be super targeted, super focused, and super clear, about what it is that we’re doing. So take that assignment, go away and do that, and I think you’ll be amazed at the areas that you might have been overwhelming your client with too many words.
Allison Tyler Jones: And next week, in part two of this series, we’re going to be talking about overwhelming your clients with too much experience. We’ve heard again and again how we need to make our sessions and every interaction with our clients more than just a transaction, we need to make it an experience. But I believe that this concept has gotten a little out of hand and may be responsible for overwhelming your clients, which results in a lack of repeat business, because it was just a little too much. But we’ll talk about that next week. So go away, do your assignment, list every single step of your client onboarding process, where might you be overwhelming them? List all the things that you want or need clients to know. List when they really need to know that thing, and strip that language back to the minimum possible number of words and sentences, and make them crystal, crystal clear.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’ve loved you being here, and I will see you next week when we talk about overwhelming your clients with too much experience. See you then.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from allison@dotherework.com, and on Instagram at do.the.rework.
